


A La Turque

by MercuryGray



Series: The Royal Tigress [6]
Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Anonymity, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Hand Jobs, Orientalism, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: Ross is in London trying to secure more backers for equipment at Wheal Leisure - an unsuccessful venture, until an old acquaintance makes an appearance, and asks for a rather unorthodox favor in return. A companion piece to The Bondage of Certain Ribbons, and the next episode in The Royal Tigress.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this story doesn't quite match up with the Poldark TV series - assume, for the purposes of debate, that Ross has come home, found his mine lacking, begun to raise capital for certain improvements, and gone looking for funds. He is still very much a bachelor gentleman during the events in this story.
> 
> Lavinia Montrose, for those of you unfamiliar with her name, is a titled lady and sometime spy and intelligencer known for her sharp wit and her habit of seducing men she wants information from. You can read more about her adventures in The Royal Tigress.

Ross considered the room with an irredeemably gloomy eye and returned to the small consolation of his wine glass, trying not to let his fear get the better of him. He’d come to London to see a friend of Mr. Pascoe’s, a Mr. Gerrit, with the aim of securing more financing for the Wheal Leisure mine. Thus far, however, ready money had been a bit thin on the ground, and Ross was beginning to think the trip (and the expenses attached to same) were going to come to naught. If this continued he thought it might not be better to cut his losses and go home empty-handed, rather than remaining her for months accruing debts he did not like to think about paying. Everything here was more expensive, from the accommodations to the wine. And it seemed precious little was coming of it.

“Cheer up, man,” Gerrit encouraged. “No one wants to talk business with a man that scowls.”

There was some commotion at the door, and a small crowd seemed to form, the room suddenly abuzz. Gerrit -- a tall, spare man -- glanced over everyone else’s heads in the direction of the commotion, disinterested. “Another of the bon ton, assuredly,” the banker said, relaxing back down a bit. “Hardly helpful. That set only knows about spending money -- not investing it. Which is why most of them so seldom have any.” 

“Ross Poldark?”

Ross cringed to hear his name, turning to confirm what his ears had already told him -- that the voice in question belonged to the one person he had not wanted to see on this trip -- the one person who should, if everything had gone to plan, known nothing of its existence. “I didn’t know you were going to be in London,” George Warleggan said with one of his craftiest smiles, making Ross feel about ten inches tall. As one of Cornwall’s wealthiest bankers, George seemed set for great things, one of which was trying to see how many mine owners he could ruin before the age of forty. So far he was doing a dashedly fine job, which won him much gold and few friends, a calculus that, for all his higher mathematical genius, he still did not seem to understand the particular implications of. His dislike for Ross was a simple one - people always liked him, a quality that was never true of George. Of all the people Ross could stand to have know of his presence in London, George Warleggan was certainly not one, for his very presence here was enough to let George divine that something was wrong at Wheal Leisure, and that, of course, was a perfectly good time to begin closing in.

“It wasn’t mentioned much,” Ross said, trying to be as light as possible. “I was visiting a few old Army friends.” A true statement -- he had made calls at several men’s houses and businesses, trying to see if anyone knew of someone who could help him. No such luck -- half-pay officers being even more short of rich friends than Cornish mine owners. A few men he had known had gone on to inherit titles and land, but theirs, too, was the same lot -- land rich, cash poor. Nothing additional for investment.

George nodded, as if he, too, had a wide array of friends he could claim acquaintance with. Here in London, Ross was certain his social circle was a little more accepting than in Truro -- while the capital could be very exclusive, enough gold guineas was enough for anyone to overlook just about anything.  “Ah, yes, of course. Well, we cannot be all work and not take some play, eh? Plenty of that to be had here, of course. I myself was hoping to catch a glimpse of a new friend myself this evening. She is planning on coming here with friends.”

Ross nodded, uninterested in hearing about George’s social life. Doubtless the lady he was pursuing had money and a title -- George (and his father) would hear of nothing else.  That was the one thing they lacked -- social respectability. Warleggan senior still spoke in the burly cadence of a man who had spent many years as a blacksmith, and all the fine clothes and lavish parties could not quite disguise that particular stain -- that in addition to being common, the elder Warleggan could at turns be quite crude. His son had benefited from the polish of education and constant  movement among Society, but it would probably not be until George’s son came of age that Warleggans would get anything like wide social acceptance. Unless, of course, he married a title, in which case people would have to respect him. Peers, of course, were remarkably short of cash but rather long on daughters -- in which case, Ross thought to himself, this future Mrs. Warleggan was sure to be pretty as well. George only liked having the best of things, and he probably had his choice of quite a few penniless lords and earls for a father-in-law.

“In fact, I think she is here already,” George said, looking across the room expectantly.

The group that had just arrived was making its way through the gaming tables, stopping, here and there, to converse. Ross looked on casually, surveying the women and wondering which among them was George’s conquest -- and then his eye caught sight of a familiar figure, her back now towards them. Those shoulders...that waist...and that  _ hair.  _

_ No, never. It can’t be. _

George strode forward, catching the lady in conversation and bowing low. The auburn head bowed, much like a queen receiving courtiers, and George nodded back at Ross, wanting to make an introduction. She acquiesced, and, turning, Ross’s suspicions were confirmed. God, how long had it been? Would she even remember him? Her face, from here, was hard to read -- though George seemed inordinately pleased.

Ross, for his part, was barely listening to George’s introductions, when they finally came, his thoughts wild and disordered.“--to introduce Captain Ross Poldark.”

She smiled -- God, how he had missed that smile. “Captain Poldark and I are already acquainted - though when last we met he was only a lieutenant.” She sounded impressed -- or was that merely pleased?

“Lady Lavinia Montrose,” Ross said, bowing and brushing his lips across the outside of her glove. 

George stood by in stunned silence, his face very much resembling that of a child who has just lost a favorite toy. “You...you know each other?”

Lavinia Montrose smiled, her eyes meeting Ross’s with a knowledgeable glance he knew all too well. The expression was perhaps too appropriate -- given that for nearly four months during the British occupation of New York they had  _ known  _ each other in every sense of the word possible, most especially the biblical one. It had been some of the best months’ of Ross’s time with the army - though after the move to Philidelphia, his regiment had been assigned other duties, and he had not had time to see Lavinia again. 

But of course they weren’t about to tell George Warleggan any of that. “Yes, Captain Poldark and I met in New York, during the war,” she mentioned carelessly. “Though I hardly expected to see him here in London. What takes you away from Cornwall, Captain?” She was, he was somewhat amused to see, having fun with his newly discovered rank.

“I am in town looking for investors,” Ross explained, feeling it useless to hide it from George any longer. He already knew this news -- or could put two and two together to make four. Lavinia’s also knowing of it would be the least of his problems. “My family has for many years owned a copper mine, and I find myself needing to undertake certain repairs -- which of course requires capital.”

“Deucedly hard to find here, I expect,” George said with a devilish smile, glad of the chance to once more upset Ross’s plans. “Copper’s a bit out of favor at the moment.”

There was a barely perceivable flash of annoyance in Lavinia’s eyes, and Ross knew, immediately, how the ground stood between him and Lavinia -- like so many of her conquests during their time in the Colonies, George was an annoyance she was putting up with for the time being. And, if Ross remembered her expressions rightly, she was going to particularly enjoy putting him in his place when the time was right. 

“If it is investors you want, you should speak to my husband!” Lavinia said, as if she were just now realizing that she was married to a rather wealthy banker. George’s smirk dropped a few degrees in its security. “Are you free tomorrow, Captain Poldark?” A bare nod. “Excellent. We receive callers between ten and two.” She reached into her reticule and withdrew a calling card, her address - a very expensive address in Mayfair -- printed in very serious script on the back. “I should be delighted to make introductions.” 

Ross bowed, trying, again, not to let his delight get the better of him, slipping her card into his pocket and resisting the urge to smell it. That perfume had been the subject of many daydreams, since the war -- and unlike most, he had had the pleasure of seeing its owner apply it during her morning  _ toilette -  _ which seemed to make the smell of it all the sweeter.

Lavinia glanced at the rest of her party and made a small sound of defeat. “Do excuse me, Mr. Warleggan -- Lord Standish is calling me. We only meant to stop for a minute.”

“You’re ...going?” George asked, obviously disappointed in more ways than one, his high card for the evening having been trumped, magnificently, by Ross.

“Lady Maugery is having a musical evening, for her daughter; I would ask you to come, but she does count her guests so.” Lavinia shrugged, as if the exclusivity of her social circle was something over which she had no control - though Ross was sure Lavinia might make that hurdle melt for the right people. She accepted a goodbye kiss on the hand from George and a bow from Ross before joining the rest of her party on their way out the door.

“Time we were going, too,” Ross announced. “George, pleasure seeing you.”

“You didn’t say you knew Lavinia Montrose,” Mr. Gerrit marveled as the footman retrieved their coats. “Her husband is one of the wealthiest bankers in London!”

“I didn’t think she’d remember me,” Ross admitted, wondering, as they waited for their carriage, what the intervening years of Lavinia’s life had been like. Had she dreamed of him as he had of her?  _ Probably not. Her mind has other occupations, surely. _

* * *

 

It was unnerving, to have the door answered by a footman. Ross, so used to the houses of the gentry where a maid was thought sufficient, startled a little to see the wigged and liveried figure at the door. “Captain Ross Poldark. I believe Lady Lavinia is expecting me.” 

If the footman had any idea of what the bearers of that phrase usually came to the house for, he gave no sign, merely opened the door and admitted his mistress’ guest, letting him fall into step behind him. 

The Montrose townhouse was well appointed, the furnishing tasteful and of the highest quality, walls freshly painted and papered, decorations trim and elegant, much like their owner. The footman opened the door to the drawing room, announced Ross’ name, and then stepped back, holding the door for Ross to enter.

“Captain Poldark,” Lavinia said, rising from her seat on the settee to take both of Ross’s hands in an exceptionally friendly manner. “So good of you to come. Please, sit. The servants are just bringing tea.” She lead him into the room, showing him a seat on the settee opposite, her hand indicating he should make himself comfortable. 

How strange it was, to see Lavinia in her native habitat! In America she had met him in townhomes and boarding houses, rude country inns and, on one occasion, in a tent a flying camp on the road. But never a place as beautiful as this. In America, she had always outshone everything around her, a gem too fine for the setting in which it fit. Here, however, she was complete, a lady at home.   _ God, how did she ever chose me?  _ Ross wondered to himself, taking in the general splendor of the room and feeling rather threadbare. His suit was good, only a year old with only some wear on it, but that seemed hardly to suffice here. Business must still have been treating Sir James well. The door opened again, admitting a maid bringing tea.

“Just here, Lucy,” Lavinia said, indicating the table. “You remember Captain Poldark, I hope?”

Lavinia’s dark eyed maid looked up from the tea tray, her face older but her smile unmistakable. “A pleasure to see you here, sir.”

“And you, Lucy,” Ross said. Lucy had been with Lavinia even in the old days, and while she now looked a young woman rather than the slip of a girl she had been when Ross had first met her, he had not forgotten the secret thrill when he realized the fiercely protective lady’s maid approved of him -- a rare honor among Lavinia’s lovers, the Lady was pleased to share with him later.

“I’ll let you pour, madam,” Lucy said, leaving the tray, making her curtsey to Lavinia.

“Thank you, Lucy. Is Sir James expected down soon? I have a matter of buisness to discuss with him.”

“I saw him in his office, madam; I’ll remind him to be down directly.” And, business dispatched, she curtseyed again, this time to Ross, and, still smiling, made her exit. 

“You’re looking well,” Lavinia said, glancing up at him as she poured the tea, adding milk and sugar with a hostess’ practiced hand and passing him his cup. “I take it Cornwall has been good to you, since you’ve come home. Apart from this business with your mine, of course.”

“Very good,” Ross acknowledged. “My farm is doing better, my friends are good,and I have my pick of the best scenery in the county whenever I chose to ride and see it. A man could not ask for more.”

“I should ask you how you came to be  _ Captain _ Poldark, but I suppose it is a dull tale,” she said with a smile. “Unless it pertains to your scar.” Ross held a hand to his face. Yes, Lavinia had never seen this. She laughed. “I think it makes you look very dashing,” she confessed. “Piratical, even. I am sure the young women of Truro have concocted all manner of stories about it.”

“I have not heard them yet, but it is doubtless true,” Ross admitted.

“And your Elizabeth?” She asked it playfully, but he felt it like a knife, and his face, unwittingly, fell. Lavinia’s smile left. “Ross, I’m so sorry, I didn’t --”

“She married someone else,” Ross said quickly, trying to head off any further ideas of young love denied by death or other romantical nonsense. “My cousin, Francis. They...they fell in love after I was gone.”  _ No one will say how long after,  _ he wanted to add, but he knew Lavinia would sense that. She always had a knack for hearing what wasn’t said.

“Then she is a fool,” Lavinia said loyally, smiling beneficently at him. “I know she meant  much to you, Ross, but that is my honest opinion. I should not have let you go for a cousin -- no matter how close or persuasive he was.” Ross smiled thinly, drinking his tea. Perhaps there was some justice in it -- for as Elizabeth had betrayed him, he had betrayed Elizabeth -- and in Lavinia’s bed, too. But as he glanced at his hostess, there was a dark, fierce anger lingering in her eyes; not at him, but at his unseen Miss Chenowyth.  _ How dare you leave him,  _ her thoughts seemed to say,  _ How dare you make him doubt what he thought to be true between you.  _

He had doubted -- doubted that she had ever loved him, that she had always loved Francis, that the promise of money and a secure fortune had been her only goals. It seemed silly now, to think about, but that had been the stuff of his nightmares -- as losing his mine was now.

The door opened again, and Lavinia sat up, all former trace of her anger gone. “My dear!” she said, rising from her seat to greet the new arrival. “I thought you should never come,” she said, kissing him, familiarly, on the cheek. “Allow me to introduce Captain Poldark. Captain, my husband, Sir James Montrose.”

Ross rose from his chair, trying not to look surprised -- for Sir James Montrose was nothing like what he had pictured. He knew the man was a brilliant financier who had married Lavinia when she was far younger than he and had spent the many years of their marriage training her into something like a well-honed sword he could use against the forces of business and politics to make his interests grow. He was also, by his wife’s admission, a sodomite, and this combination of facts had given way to an image in Ross’s mind of a shorter, slightly sedentary, fleshy sort of man, with a voluptuary’s lips and a sort of wandering, perpetually bored eye. 

He had been wrong in nearly every respect. Sir James was tall and spare, easily able to match his wife’s height with room besides, his face not so thin as to be considered gaunt, with lightning-quick eyes and an almost humorless expression, which lifted, in a moment of brief fondness, for his young wife’s peck on the cheek, which he returned with a nearly unseen smile. He was older than her, a great deal older, but gave no indication of infirmity -- an image that Ross knew Lavinia had sometimes used as enticement for some of her lovers, should they prove resistant to the idea of the advances of a married woman.

Had Ross not been told differently, it would have been the picture of a perfectly conventional marriage -- which, of course, it was anything but. He remembered, long ago, that Lavinia spoke with her husband about all her lovers, and wondered, briefly, what she’d told him about him. “Sir James,” He said, rising from his chair and shaking hands with the Scottish peer. His grip was firm, the kind of handshake favored by men of business.

“Captain. You and my wife met in America.” His voice, too, was measured and direct, with a slight hint of the lowlands of his birth, not the mincing and effeminate speech of the molly or the macaroni.

_ If  _ **_met_ ** _ is the right word for it,  _ Ross could not help but think. “Indeed, sir.”

“She tells me you are a man of property now, in Cornwall,” Sir James said, sitting down and letting Lavinia pour him a cup of tea, “and mentions that you have a mine -- copper or tin?”

They spoke, at length, about Wheal Leisure, and his cousin’s problems at Wheal Reath, the monopoly on smelting works and the trouble of getting a good price for ore, the growing problem of unemployment and the necessity, in Ross’ eyes, of building up some other industry before the communities of his youth (and the great houses supported by them) were in danger of dying out. Sir James listened to all of this with a careful eye, asking his questions in such an easy way that Ross was giving much more direct answers than, he reflected afterwards, he would have given to anyone else. Lavinia, too, was focused in her remarks, always asking something that drew a different side of the question out of Ross, helping him paint a fuller picture.

“It is not all doom and gloom, sir, nor boundless optimism,” He found himself saying. “There are men who give up when the business is not easy, and some that stay at it long after it reasonable to do so. But I have good men working for me, who know their business and would tell me if my hopes were unfounded -- and they believe that Wheal Leisure can produce again, and in good quantity -- given sufficient capital for tools and equipment we do not currently have.”

Sir James nodded, considering, as he had done the whole time, with the balance sheet in the back of his mind’s eye. “Your outputs for the last three years?” He asked. Ross named the sums, and the banker stared at a blank space for a moment, figuring. “You’ve paid your shareholders dividends, I imagine.”

“Small ones, sir, but yearly,” Ross admitted. “Commensurate to their shares of stock.”

“How much capital is required, for this equipment?” 

Ross again named his figure, and Sir James nodded. “And I take it your own bankers are unwilling to provide such a sum?”

“It is not that they are unwilling to provide it, sir, but rather that I am not willing to accept the terms it would come with. Not interest, sir,” he added quickly. “More the...social obligation.”

“George Warleggan is one of Captain Poldark’s neighbors, my dear,“ Lavinia added with a significant glance at her husband. Sir James nodded. Apparently he, too, was familiar with George.

“Well, Captain, if Lavinia wishes to give you a loan I cannot stop her,” he said, his considerations finished. Ross’s face fell a little. He had hoped to leave Lavinia out, not wanting to bankrupt whatever fortune she possessed independent of her husband. “She will name her terms -- doubtless favorable. As for myself, I cannot see the harm in purchasing a few dozen shares. It must be a silent shareholdership, though. Your man here in London is Gerrit, is he not? I will call tomorrow and have papers drawn up.”

Ross, still lingering over the first part of Sir James' speech, could scarcely believe his ears. Had he… had he won? “My thanks, sir,” he said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic about the business. 

Sir James gave what must have passed for an approving smile. “You speak very passionately about your mine, Captain Poldark -- not like some of the owners I meet with who care nothing about the thing unless it makes them a fantastic sum in the first year. I appreciate a man of sound business sense -- as well as principle.” He rose, and Ross rose with him, shaking his hand again and letting him leave. When the door was shut behind him he could not help but sigh.

‘You were magnificent,” Lavinia said with a smile, moving to his side of the tea table and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“I felt he was going to eat me alive,” Ross admitted, sinking back into his seat. How comfortable and familiar they were again! To have her arm around his shoulders, the scent of her perfume lingering on his clothes -  It was as if no time had passed, and nothing had changed. Before, as they had waited for Sir James to arrive, he felt stilted, somehow, still boxed in by convention -- but that had passed, and they were as free and easy in each others’ company as they had ever been of old.

“You’re not his type,” Lavinia said, settling into the couch next to him and smiling as he looked at her, a little unnerved. She stroked one of his curls, still smiling. “I missed this hair,” she said off-handedly. 

So she hadn't forgotten him. Ross would have been thrilled -- if something else wasn't also bothering him. “What did you tell him about me?” 

Lavinia looked up from her appreciation of his curls and smirked. “Nearly everything -- about your dark looks and your persistence, and your patience. He was impressed by that. As he was impressed today. You did very well.”

“And...other things?” 

Her lip curled. “I am allowed  _ some  _ secrets. He knows who comes into my bed -- but not necessarily everything that transpires there.”

“I am in your debt,” Ross realized, looking over at her, his words feeling very heavy. “If there is...anything I can do…I am in London but a few days more.” When they had met in New York, he was her choice, a relief from men she did not care for but chased for the expedience of her husband’s business. This was different. Would she take the same service as payment, when its value had fallen so? It seemed so small, after the sum Sir James was about to give him.

She laughed and brushed at his hair again. “You _owe_ me nothing,” she assured him, “and will say no more of debts and repayments to me. I would not say no to what those words stand in for,” she said with a smile. “Though I think were I to offer now you would still come as to pay a debt, and not to see an absent lover, which would be much less fun, for me and for you.” She laid back on the settee and studied him, her face suddenly breaking into a smile. “But...there is something you could help me with,” she said, eyes merry. Ross sat up.

“Name it - I am yours.”

“Sir James goes back to Edinburgh soon, and I have a party to attend on Friday. He hates these things and would not go even if he were free -- so I am in need of an escort.” Ross opened his mouth to protest, but Lavinia went on. “I would provide the suit -- I know you did not bring your court dress with you -- and you should only have to meet me here, change your clothes, and accompany me. After...would be your decision alone.”

“I am your servant,” Ross declared. 

Lavinia smiled, her usual mischief obviously afoot. “That is not  _ quite  _ the plan,” she said, with a general air of mystery, and Ross, taken aback, began wondering precisely what it was he had volunteered to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea's been kicking around my head for a while, and I've finally gotten around to writing it down!
> 
> This seemed just a bit long for one chapter, so I've split it into two. This was a lot of stage-setting, I know -- but Part the Second is much more fun, I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ross still doesn't know what he's volunteered for with Lavinia, but a promise is a promise - even if it gets him into trouble. Which, when Lavinia is involved, is practically a given.

 

Ross walked from his lodgings to the Montrose townhouse on Friday a little after dinner, the streets heavy with traffic for the theatre and the capital's many parties. Knocking on the door produced the same footman, admitting him without comment. The night’s proceedings were still weighing heavily on his mind - Lavinia had a known taste for the sensational, and he was quite certain, judging by her smile and her unwillingness to let him in on the secret, that whatever she had planned would certainly be memorable. Still, a promise was a promise -- and Lavinia, for all that she enjoyed to gamble with her own dignity sometimes, could be surprisingly mindful of others’ feelings on a particular subject.

 

“Captain Poldark!” It was Lucy, on the landing of the stairs. “ I’m to help you dress, sir,” she said, beckoning him upstairs. “My lady wants to make sure it fits,” she explained. “She's very good with measurements, but she does like to have everything just so.”

 

Ross followed her upstairs, her steps too quick for him to appreciate the upper floors and the care taken with their art and ornament. Every so often he caught a flash of something he wished he could study longer -- a souvenir from one of Lavinia’s wide travels, a particularly fine piece of porcelain in the Chinese style or a set of daggers from some Indian princely state, arranged like a sunburst, their curved blades wicked in the candlelight. Lucy tipped a door open and gestured him inside. “I’ll wait out here until you’re finished, sir,” she said, a consideration that made Ross smile. Lucy had lit enough pre-dawn fires and cleaned enough of his clothes to have almost as intimate a knowledge of him as her mistress did -- but she would still do this little thing to save some of his dignity.

 

The room was a guest bedroom, offered without comment, sheets turned down and a clean shirt laid on the pillow -- if he wished to spend the night alone, one imagined. And, at the foot of the bed, lay his suit -- which, as Ross drew nearer, was not really a suit at all. Or at least, not like one Ross had ever seen. He picked up what he thought was the jacket, holding it up and smiling a little. “Lavinia, what are you planning?”

 

He stripped to the skin and dressed anew, feeling that none of his regular clothes would be quite appropriate. She’d thought of everything -- a sort of undershirt in silk, cut close, underdrawers of the same material that felt strange against his skin. He struggled with the rest, but found himself, when it was over, in a reasonable approximation of decency. “Lucy!”

 

She came at once, and he held out of his arms, shrugging. The lady’s maid beamed. “She will love it,” she pronounced, and set about fixing his ties, adjusting the fit here and there with a quick pinch and tug. “And your hat, sir,” she said, just as he thought they were finished. She picked up a long length of cloth and began folding it expertly, only to begin wrapping it around his head, finally securing it with a pin topped with a ruby bigger than anything Ross had ever seen in his life.

 

“Well?” Ross asked, wondering at what point he would be permitted a mirror. 

 

“You look like a prince out of an eastern fairy-story,” Lavinia’s voice said from the back of the room. Ross turned quickly, forgetting about the turban sitting atop his head, and gaped -- Lavinia had truly outdone herself this time. If he was to play her prince, then Lavinia looked  ready to play his consort -- or his concubine. She had not settled for the more popular  _ robe a la turque _ , which took the fashion of the east and transmitted it into more modest terms, but had rather gone straight to the harem itself. A long sort of jacket fell to her knees, open at the front to reveal a cunning little red waistcoat, cut square and low and cinched tight to throw her breasts into dazzling and erotic prominence, the corners of the vest folded back as if to suggest the contents of her bodice might, at some point, break free. Beneath this she wore no skirts, but rather long, flowing trousers, gathered at the ankles and accentuating her slim white feet, at this very moment in delicate slippers with embroidered, pointed toes. 

 

She looked, in a word, magnificent.  And, incidentally, very pleased with herself. Lucy withdrew, her task complete, shutting the door behind her.  “I had thought to go as Liberty, and carry an American flag, just to twist a few noses, but this is much better,” she said. “Every woman in the room shall want you to ravish them,” she declared. “Here, you must put on your sword.” She passed over a pretty looking scabbard chased with gold and emeralds, buckling it around Ross’ waist herself and smiling as the movement took her closer to his body, arms wrapped around him.

 

“Where on earth did you find this?”

 

“It was gifted to me by an admirer,” she explained. 

 

“A diplomat of some kind?”

 

“A prince, actually, though I was at his court with the diplomat. He was dull as paint -- but the prince thought me exotic and wild -- and gave me all manner of things in return for a few ...small favors-- including some very, very pretty emeralds.”

 

Ross could not help but roll his eyes, knowing full well what Lavinia’s idea of small favors was. “Everyone thinks you exotic and wild.”

 

“But in Constantinople women -- women of standing, I should say -- do not go around without a veil,” Lavinia said. “I was even more of a scandal there. And red-heads are not really common in Turkey, unless you go to the north, into the Caucausus. The Sultan Suleman’s wife Roxelana was said to have red hair -- she was quite a scandal in her day. She helped her husband rule - about the same time as Henry the Eighth.”

 

“Another man who could write many words on difficult women,” Ross quipped, to Lavinia’s delight. “You would have ravished him.”

 

“I hope I would have had more sense,” she commented, adjusting his belt once more and surveying his various layers. “Being ravished by him didn’t usually end well. Do the boots fit?”

 

Ross wiggled his toes inside the leather riding boots with ease. “The boots are the one part of this ensemble I would actually keep,” he said, inspecting his footwear alongside hers. “Shall you not be cold?”

 

“Hopefully, I shall be dancing, and shall not notice.” she chided. “Now -- one final touch.” She went to the dressing table, on which Lucy had assembled all the various bits and bobs of the completed costume, ropes of pearls and ornate looking medals. “How shall you like this?” In her hand, the soft, anonymous shape of a common, black mask, made to cover the wearer’s eyes, leaving the rest of the face free to converse. Ross took it from her hand, fitting it, experimentally, to his face. 

 

“I think what I like matters very little,” he replied, and Lavinia laughed. 

 

“They will want you to devour them,” she predicted, studying him with a pleased look. “Here -- look.” She held up a hand mirror, and even Ross startled a minute -- for it was not him looking back, but a swarthy, dark-eyed emir peering out from behind the leather of the mask. The whole suit was a kind of dusky gold, in complement to her reds and oranges, which suited his coloring and made him look, if possible, even more dark and royal, the color shifting subtly under the light of the candles. A coat cut down to the knees, complete with a belted waistcoat, also long, and long, baggy trousers, tucked into the tops of the tall, elaborately tooled riding boots, thier tips turned up just a little, like her slippers. Belt, sword and turban completed the look. “See?” She smiled, setting down the mirror and taking the mask from him.

 

“And you?” He couldn’t help but ask. “What does the Tigress want?” It was a question that had been bothering him since the night they’d met in the gaming room. It had been a long time, and tastes change -- or so he’d heard. His interest in her had waned little, though he’d been with other women since; seeing her had only awoken them again. None of the others had been like her -- none who simply wanted him for who he was. His desires had become a thing of bodily need, only, satisfied on trips to town in anonymous beds and paid for with coins on bedside tables. Nothing of substance -- nothing of the chase. And simply being in her presence the other day, watching her taunt George Warleggan with pleasures he would never have, had stirred things in him he had long since forgotten.  _ Do you wish to devour me, too?  _ Her smile now was smug and satisfied, and she drew herself close, kissing him with slow, torturous care, even going so far as to nip at his bottom lip and pull away, grinning.

 

“I’d eat you now if I didn’t want to tease everyone else with you first,” she threatened softly. “And I’m not sure I’d be able to get you back inside all of this without Lucy’s help. Besides, we would not wish to be late. Come along, Sultan Rostam. Take your houri and let us depart.”

 

He thought he’d misheard her. “Is that what I’m to be called? Rostam?”

 

“Rostam, Lavinia explained, leading the way downstairs, mask in hand, “ was a great cavalier among the Persians. There’s a very famous poem about him. And, if you have _ un pseudonyme,  _ people will wonder at you even more.”

 

“Then what am I to call you?” Ross asked, waiting as Lucy draped her lady’s cloak over her costume, hiding all but her turbaned head from view. 

 

“Where we’re going, even a mask won’t hide me,” Lavinia said with a rueful smile.

 

The carriage ride was uneventful, taken in silence as they sat on the back bench seat. Ross watched out the window, watching the fashionable neighborhoods of London roll by, his attention suddenly jolted back to the present when he felt Lavinia’s hand cup itself around the front of his trousers, the folds of fabric giving her a rather precise grip. He moved his hand to take her wrist, move her away. “No,” she said, quietly. “You think you owe me something, Ross, that you can only pay  _ me _ back. But you should know me better -- that’s not how I play. Can I not want to please you -- to  _ want  _ you?” Her fingers moved in expert attention, and Ross felt the muscles of his legs tighten, pulse quickening. “Remember, tonight I am your servant -- not you mine.” Her fingers moved again, away from the fabric and down the drawstring of his drawers until they found bare skin, and he closed his eyes, breathing quickly. “Let me  _ serve _ you.”

 

He let her carry on several more moments before his resolve broke and he turned his head to kiss her, drinking in her lips as her hand moved to wrap around him, stroke him until he felt himself come in her hand. He tried to be silent, his only concession one great shuddering sigh.  _ Woman, why do you torment me so?  _  The party seemed so distant, so unnecessary. Could they not just go home and finish what she’d started? “No one shall know I was here,” she promised, withdrawing her hand and cleaning her fingers delicately on a corner of her cloak before smoothing down his trousers, looking pleased. The carriage rolled to a stop, and Lavinia took the door handle before he could move to open it. “Remember -- you owe me nothing. You have come with me, but that means nothing -- I have no monopoly on you or on your time. Should someone else ask your attentions you are free to give them.” Her eyes glittered in the darkness of the carriage as she tied on her own mask, dyed the same orange-red as her waistcoat. “And I rather hope you do. They could do with a little teasing, I think.”

 

She fixed his mask on, tucking the ribbon ends up into his turban, and finally released the door handle. Ross went first, stepping down into onto stone steps, and holding up a hand to help Lavinia down. There were gasps and excited giggles from several passing ladies, their hair sprigged with butterflies and flowers like forest nymphs -- a tame theme. Ross peered at them from behind his mask and, feeling Lavinia beside him, gave what he hoped was a close approximation of her satisfied smile and a bow of his head. At least one of the girls looked transfixed a moment, like a deer afraid of the hunter, and beside him, he heard Lavinia laugh behind her lips. “See?” she said, as they headed inside. “Devour them.”

 

The room inside was a riot of color and noise, the costumes assembled in the most wild fashion imaginable. Nymphs and saytrs, gods and long dead princes, vices and virtues -- all in a single room. 

 

It was easy enough to stay by Lavinia’s side, walking a step behind her as if she were his guide, his translator in this strange world. And, true to her word, everywhere they went he was an object of attention, the ladies eyeing him from behind thier fans in veiled interest. After the first few introductions, Ross decided it was better to remain silent, pretending, after someone addressed a question straight at him, that Rostam Sultan did not speak English. Lavinia, catching the joke, smiled and carried on as if that had been her intention all the time, addressing him in a surprisingly fluent torrent of what he could only assume was Turkish. (Was there no end to her surprising skills?) He nodded in the affirmative, and the game continued.

 

It was surprising how much one could hear if people thought him uncomprehending. “Why is the Sultan here?” One group of ladies, including one with a very bold eye, asked Lavinia, peering at him from behind their masks.

 

“He has heard much about the beauty of English ladies and wished to see for himself,” Lavinia said with a twinkle in her eye.

 

“Does he like what he sees?” the bold-eyed one asked, her gaze frankly daring Ross to look. Lavinia directed a coy, smiling stream of words at Ross, who, enjoying his role, smiled slightly -- answer enough for the bold one. Her friends laughed, but her eye never left Ross.  “Because he can have me if he wants.”

 

She was the first to pull him into a corner and place his hand, suggestively, on her bodice, letting him kiss her in that immoderate way that suggested she could be led to other things, but when her hands tugged at his mask he pulled away and left her where she stood, scowling as if she’d seriously displeased him. After that there was no shortage, it seemed, of ladies who did not seem to mind being compromised a little by dark-eyed Rostam, hands on waists and breasts, backs pressed to walls so one leg or the other might, while its owner was being kissed, wrap itself around his calf and one hand (or both!) found all kinds of ways to tease.

 

“What would the Earl say?” one woman asked her companion, following a suggestive invitation from Ross’s open hand.  “Richard isn’t here,” she replied flippantly. “And he’s not half as good looking, either.”

 

Ross had long since lost Lavinia, but, truth be told, the constantly changing round of faces and easy smiles was starting to bore him. It seemed so much low-hanging fruit, tasteless without the thrill that came from scaling the tree. He’d sampled, as she’d told him he could. These other women were tame, pale reflections of true pleasure-- and now, after having sampled them all, he wanted only one. Lavinia was doubtless spreading her own brand of mischief somewhere, and he wound his way back through the crowds, looking for her.

 

He found her in an anteroom, sitting, like a captured slave, at the feet of a somewhat convincing Hannibal in buskins and leopard furs. She’d lost her turban at some point in the evening’s festivities, and her hair fanned out over her shoulders in wild, wavy locks, like a maenad. Hannibal’s hand was draped possessively over her shoulder, and her fingers seemed intent on tracing patterns on his calf while listening to the rest of the conversation with her usual care. The red waistcoat looked, at some point, to have been compromised a little further, which suddenly made Ross wish to use the curved sabre at his waist. Had it been Hannibal? One of the Satyrs eyeing her hungrily in his goatskin trousers, or the Elizabethan gentleman in tights and ruff, his pearl-ornamented codpiece oddly conspicuous in the half-light? Which one should he run through? 

 

He wanted to call her name, order her to attend him, as he might a servant -- but to shout her name, her real name, seemed strange. She smiled, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, and another title sprang to mind. “Roxelana!”

 

She looked up in the direction of his voice. Hannibal looked displeased, his hand rising to his sword. “A thousand apologies, my lord,” she said, rising from the floor and making an obeisance to her companion, kissing the hem of his tunic in the eastern manner. “But my master requires me.”

 

“Stay,” Hannibal begged. “I’ll fight him for you.”

 

She laughed at that. “You’d lose, my lord,” she assured him, before turning and joining Ross at the door. “Time to go, I take it?” she asked in a low voice. “How did you find the company?”

 

“Not as good as yours,” Ross admitted without shame. She laughed at that, but took his meaning easily enough, and followed him outside.

 

They kept to their own sides of the carriage at least for a little while, each one staring the other down as if they might undress each other with their eyes alone. The steps of Lavinia’s townhouse could not appear fast enough, nor the stairs to her bedroom be climbed quite quick enough. She took exquisite pleasure in undressing him, a privilege the rest of the ladies had been angling for all evening, taking her sweet time with each tie and knot until the gorgeous silk was in a pile on the floor and Ross’s patience was all but gone. He’d bodily picked her up after she’d shed a single layer of her own clothes and carried her over to her bed to begin practically ripping her out of her own costume, which she did not object to in the slightest.

 

He took her once with blinding intensity, letting the Tigress show her claws (and teeth) to good effect, hardly the captured slave of earlier in the evening. When he’d finished, sinking onto her pillow and catching his breath, Ross looked over at her and caught her smiling at him -- not the predatory smirk of earlier, while she’d watched him play with the court beauties in their pretty gowns, but a fond, satisfied smile. “I missed this,” she said, rolling over onto her stomach to be closer to him. “Are you sure you have to go back to Cornwall when this is done?’

 

“A mine does not run itself,” Ross said, lifting himself up on one arm to watch her easier. She made a small groan of displeasure, pouting a little, but that soon left.

 

“I suppose I would not like you quite as much if you did not care so deeply,” she mused, resting one cheek on her hand to study him. “For your mine -- your work” she expanded. “Even in America you were like that -- always rushing off to something else. Other men give up on things -- you don’t. Persistence can be very charming -- as can patience.”

 

“I’m afraid I wasn’t very patient with you tonight,” Ross remarked offhandedly, which made her smile even wider. 

 

“After being teased all evening I’m surprised you didn’t take me in the carriage,” Lavinia laughed. “I never heard so many scandalized giggles as I did this evening - nor seen so many sleek smiles afterwards. You must have been run quite ragged.”

 

“I could say the same for you,” Ross observed. “Did Hannibal manage to conquer Rome?”

 

She laughed outright at that. “He did  _ not  _ \- though he did try very hard, poor man. Ultimately I let him in -- but not to everything,” she assured him. “I don’t particularly enjoy paunchy generals, as well you know.” She gazed down the length of the bed, obviously making a study of Ross’s own body. “You’ve kept yourself very well, you know-- no fine living for Mister Poldark.”

 

“Very little,” he corrected.  “The mine and the farm leave little time for idleness.”

 

“You are a farmer, too? Oh, Ross, don’t tempt me with country pastorals as well as eastern fantasies,” Lavinia complained. “I shall have to come down to Cornwall to watch you in your fields -- sowing or reaping or something.”

 

“It had better be reaping,” Ross remarked, smiling at her and the exaggerated pain of finding yet another fantasy to enact. (He was sure she had a shepherdess’ rude gown somewhere; if she could produce at a week’s notice the full court dress of a Turkish prince the rough petticoats of an agricultural servant would not have been difficult.) “The weather’s better in harvest season.”

 

“Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove,” she quoted, now all smiles again. “I can see it now -- all your bronzed skin and your scythe.” She stroked at his arm, probably imagining the scene and the movement of his muscles. “And you say there’s no one at home for you?” she asked, meeting his eyes again. “Surely there’s some anxious little miss in Truro or some such who wants to be Mistress Poldark.”

 

“Plenty of anxious little misses -- but none I like, particularly,” Ross explained. “You told me once I wasn’t meant for tame women. ”  _I know that to be true, now. Elizabeth was tame, and followed as her mother bid. I couldn't deal with that again._

 

“I did, didn’t I? But it is true -- you’d be mortally unhappy with a spineless creature. No, you need someone with character and spirit and strong opinions. You don’t live in town, I take it?” He shook his head. “Well, but perhaps country girls in Cornwall are different,” she reflected pensively. “Tell me about it, Ross,” she ordered, resting her chin in her hands. “Your farm, your mine, your friends.”

 

He detailed for her the sheds and barns of Nampara, the cove and the rocks, and the rides he would take between the cliffs, the mine and the house, giving a little sketch of his doings since he’d come home and found his father’s house in disrepair. He tried to speak little of people, since she would know little of them, though he did give a comic sketch of Jud, and Prudy, which she laughed at, and Demelza, too. He talked of Verity, and Aunt Agatha, and Elizabeth, too, though he tried hard not to -- but the picture seemed incomplete without them. Lavinia was quiet in all the right places and asked all the right questions, kissing him, when he had finished detailing a particularly picturesque walk on the beach, just after he’d returned home.

 

“You get wonderfully poetic when you speak of it all, you know. And it sounds lovely.”  She rose from bed to pour them both a glass of wine.  “Your servants mean much to you, for you to speak of them so.”

 

“What, Jud and Prudy?” Ross laughed. “More trouble than they’re worth, some days.”

 

Lavinia smiled. “Demelza, too -- your maid. You speak of _her_ a great deal.”

 

“Do I?” Ross asked, distracted. “I hadn’t noticed.” Lavinia’s smile was slow and skeptical, and he realized what she was implying a bit too late. “What...Demelza? She’s a girl. And a half starved, half wild one, too.”

 

“And girls become women, Ross,” Lavinia reminded. “We do all have to start somewhere. I think you had better keep your eye on her -- or someone else will. One of your young miners, perhaps.”

 

“Let them have her,” Ross said grandly. “Half-starved girls aren’t for me. Not when I,” he began, moving to cover Lavinia, “have this!”

 

A second round of lovemaking silenced more serious conversation for a while, slower and tenderer this time, leading to yawns and pillowed shoulders and snuffed candles. She went to sleep straight away -- a happy skill, she had often explained to him, coming from having to habitually rise early to get out of beds she did not belong in. But Ross laid awake a while longer, staring at Lavinia’s draperies and wondering where on earth she’d gotten the idea, the troubling, monstrous idea, about Demelza being fond of him, or he of her.

 

He awoke the next morning to fresh tea on the bedside table and his clothes, neatly folded, waiting for him on a nearby chair - doubtless Lucy’s work. Lavinia was, surprisingly, still sleeping, her face in slumber easier than he ever saw it while she was awake, no longer the proud and haughty tigress but rather a long, lithe ginger kitten, curled slightly under the covers, warm and content.

 

As much as he loved the sharp-edged witty woman of the salon and the ballroom, there was something wonderful, too, about the soft, sensual creature underneath -- a woman most men seldom saw. She was not a woman who allowed too many men into this part of her life, sleeping and without her armor. He wished he could bring her home with him, show her Nampara instead of merely talking of it, but he knew that to be a dream. Lavinia would tire of Cornwall just as surely as he would tire of town, and, of course, there was her husband to consider. Even the free-thinking Sir James surely had limits, and Ross was sure letting his wife hie off to a remote corner of Cornwall was quite beyond them. 

 

He dressed while she was still asleep, tucking the covers back in around her body and brushing a wayward curl out of her face.

 

“She’ll be sad she missed you.” It was Lucy, coming down the stairs from some hidden part of the house.

 

“Please give her my good-byes,” Ross said, suddenly feeling a little cowardly. He should have stayed, but that would have made his departure even harder than it already was. He wanted to stay here forever, or leave and take her with -- but neither of those were really, truly possible. So he was leaving before she had a chance to try and make him change his mind. It was better this way.

 

Lucy must have known his dilemma, for she smiled, and nodded, understanding. “Best of luck with your mine, Captain Poldark. I’m sure it will be a success.”

 

“Thank you, Lucy. For...everything.”

 

The maid smiled. “She doesn’t often do something just for herself, sir. It’s good she should have a little fun, once in a while. Should I tell her to write?”

 

“If she wishes,” Ross said. Lucy nodded again, and, making her curtsey, made her own departure back upstairs, leaving the stairs between Ross and the front door clear. It was early enough that the footmen were not yet out of bed themselves, so he let himself out, walking back to his lodgings in the thin morning silence, listening to the city rouse itself for the day. 

 

“So, was it a successful trip?” Mr. Pascoe asked, meeting the coach in Truro to collect Ross and his business documents after a jolting, two day journey. “Did you conquer London’s bankers, as you intended?” 

  
Ross had a brief flash of orange and crimson, a woman’s laughter and long, red hair, gleaming like copper in the candle-light as she danced, and could not help but smile. “Something like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the men I've set her on, Ross seems to be the one with whom Lavinia works the best -- they're both strong-minded, opinionated people who don't hesitate to give those opinions, and while Ross is known for his firey temper and lack of control in his decision making, he can, at turns, be a shrewd planner and strategist when it suits him, much like Lavinia. In short, they're very much equals - something Lavinia recognizes in The Bondage of Certain Ribbons. 
> 
> Apologies to the Ottomans (and the rest of the Arab world, really) for wholesale abuse of their customs, traditions, and cultural artifacts (like Rostam, borrowed here from Feradowsi's Shah-nameh).

**Author's Note:**

> This idea's been kicking around my head for a while, and I've finally gotten around to writing it down!
> 
> This seemed just a bit long for one chapter, so I've split it into two. This was a lot of stage-setting, I know -- but Part the Second is much more fun, I promise.


End file.
